[*Shira*]

As Anala said, the stars on the message board represent how many messages you have posted so far. The more you post, the more stars you get.

In your profile area, the points are awarded when you do stuff like posting a blog entry, uploading a photo, post something in a group, etc. You can use those points to "purchase" gifts to send to other bhuz members. It doesn't cost you any money to send an e-gift to a fellow bhuzzard, but a couple of points are subtracted from your total when you do.